It wasn’t too long ago that emotions had no place in the business world. They were seen as a total waste of time and unproductive. Boy, how things have changed. Today, inspiring emotions is a critical part of any entrepreneur’s business repertoire and the social skills required have to be developed to create a positive impact on the bottom line.

If there is a desire for stronger leadership, better understanding of your team members’ behaviors and more effective communication -- not only to your peers but also to influencers and investors alike -- you have to understand the one thing that’ll change the way you do business.

In earlier times, you'd hear someone giving advice of “keeping emotions out of business” if you want to be successful. What they failed to acknowledge is that emotion is what gets people to invest in you, to buy your products and help you on your entrepreneurial journey.

Emotions are the driving force of your business. It is one thing to understand how to control emotional stress as it can prevent your effectiveness on the job, but another to use your emotions to drive influence internally and externally. And the way to improve your communication and provoke positive emotions that impact your business is to develop your social skills.

Want proof? Salespeople at L’Oreal who were trained in social skills development sold over $92,000 more than salespeople who weren’t trained, resulting in more than $2.5 million in increased revenue for the company.

So what social skills are the most important ones to develop? Here are the three major principles:

Context revolves around your ability to correctly assess situations, which involves being able read people’s emotions and body language. The best way to go about that is by exposing yourself to various social situations and internally describing various contexts.

The quicker you can assess scenarios, the better you’ll be at effectively making decisions that can move your business forward.

Confidence is at the core of your emotions and the foundation for your success in business. Because emotions can be physically provoked, you can “trick” your emotional state by making physical gestures -- standing upright, smiling, making eye contact, projecting your voice, slower moments and speech, etc. This comes in handy during important meetings and presentations, where it’s vital to deliver the message that influences your audience.

Content is the strategy that brings the results. This revolves around the people who are influential in your business’ success, whether acknowledging them as a group or as individuals, and calling out their meaningful contributions and how much they mean to you. While this is the easiest part for most, its impact is heavily influenced by your understanding of context and projecting confidence your audience can respond to.

When these social skills are developed, you’ll not only boost your emotional intelligence but your entire company’s, in turn boosting its value and most importantly improving the bottom line.

The problem with many plans is that they depend on your changing your life to match what someone else says will work, rather than your understanding yourself well and deciding to budget your time accordingly.